Ode to 25

I realize that people turn 25 every day, but I only turn 25 once, so let me revel in it for one blog post at least before I get the standard "Think about how old I feel" comments!


Oh, to the year I turn 25. I never thought I would be this old. In just 8 short days, the day of my birth will be upon us. It is sure to be interesting and full of adventure and maybe even a little love along the way. One quarter of a century, what a comforting thought.
Don't get me wrong, there are many things to celebrate about it: lower car insurance, a sense of independence at being in your mid-20s, as well as getting farther and farther from those awkward teen years that I, for one, would like to forget.

In 8 short days the comments will begin,

                "I was married and had 3 kids by 25"
                "I was working full time and owned my own home at your age"
                                      and
                "You aren't getting any younger"

These people may think they are helpful, they may even mean well in some way, but let me tell you these words make me imagine punching them in the throat! However, I am older and wiser, right? So instead of fantasizing about punching people in the windpipe, I will just smile and say, "Bless your heart" and walk away.

While it may be true that many people are married, with a mortgage and three kids by 25, I am not most people. My father was right when he said "You never do things the easy way do you?"

Every other birthday I've celebrated, people were happy for me and told me how good that year was to them and so on, but this year is different. I have been told by a variety of people in my life that 25 was their worst/hardest/most frustrating year of life... what wonderful words of encouragement to a young heart! I love these people dearly, and I am glad they are honest with me and not getting my hopes up, but I could use some encouragement this year. I already know it's going to be a rough year, you didn't have to tell me that. I am older than anyone in my immediate family was when they got married. In fact, my parents were married (to other people), divorced, and remarried before they hit this wonderful milestone.

Some of my non-church friends have said things like "I don't understand how you're still single, aren't there guys at that big church you go to?" And to that I say "Yeah there are plenty of guys, but there's a reason they're still on the market!"

So I will leave you with these parting words: if you know anyone turning 25 or who has recently turned 25, give them a hug. Chances are they need it!

Is it possible to run out of words?

Some days I feel like words just flow so freely from my fingertips as I type out dialogue and set up scenes and conflict, but those days are too few and too far between sometimes. Maybe it has something to do with my busy days and short nights to myself. Or maybe my word cup is only filled so full for a certain period of time and I can write and write and write, but when the cup dries up I must wait for something to fill it up again. I wish that I knew what filled up that cup. I wish that I could say "Super-size my cup please and fill it as full as it can go."

I think one of the biggest things that fills up my word cup is the proper amount of sleep. I get less than the recommended number of hours most nights, so that can dry up my words quicker than anything.
I also think that being too busy can suck the words out of my brain. It's not that I don't have a few spare minutes, even sometimes an hour, to write, but when I get a sizable chunk of time to sit at my computer and allow my mind to wander through the story and carefully unfold the plot as I go words tend to flow a lot faster and a lot more cohesively.
Being in public helps too. I can listen to real dialogue and remind myself that people don't talk the way that I write most of the time. And I can watch people interact with each other and their surroundings and try to understand how they navigate through life.
These things really do help my story develop from the feeble meanderings I come up with in my brain and make it into something that people might actually believe.

It's not hard to convince people to stretch their minds around new concepts and things that have never been seen before, after all just last night I was in a sold out theater watching a movie about a sparkly vampire, but if I don't base my story in some sound life models the story holds no weight.

How sweet it is...

... to meet goals!

I'll admit, I didn't think I had it in me last night. I had writing to do, reading to do, coffee to drink and food to eat. And above all else, no inspiration. I was stuck in my plot. There was a conflict brewing and the resolutions were not looking promising. One was a repeat of something that happened earlier in the story, and the other option was way too simple. I hate stories when a conflict arises and in less than a chapter it's tied up in a neat little bow and hand delivered straight to the reader. As a reader, I beg for intrigue, surprise and maybe a little bit of dragging the villains name through the muddied waters of the plot.

As is the case for many writers, my characters come to life as I type. They show me who they are and what they are all about, far above anything I might have planned for them. The characters take hold of their own lives and force me to let them live it the way they see fit, and usually that change is better than anything I could have come up with.

So last night, I sat down at my computer at one of my favorite little cafes and quietly asked my group of characters, "What would you do in this situation?" And they came through like I couldn't have imagined. And before I knew it my word count went from 11,011 or 13,108! My goal by Thursday was 13,000, so that put me over by 108 words 2 days before my deadline! My prize? DESSERT!!!

I will continue to write this week. I'm not giving up just yet. Maybe I'll set another goal and push myself to meet it. Small goals are where it's at!

The unproductive weekend

The weekend has come and gone and I am left at the same word count I was at on Friday afternoon. I enjoy being busy, but sometimes my need of entertainment and multi-tasking can seriously deprive me of any time to focus on writing something, anything really. I get distracted so easily. Even in the short time that I have been writing this I have checked facebook and looked around multiple times to find out who people are and what they are doing around me. It is a struggle to hold my attention to anything for any length of time.

And there I go again, getting distracted. I need some more coffee or something to hold my attention for more than 5 minutes.

Word count goals

Here's the break down of how many words the goal of National Novel Writing Month is on a total basis. The goal is to write 1,667 words a day.

November

1: 1,667

2: 3,334

3: 5,001

4: 6,668

5: 8,335

6: 10,002

7: 11,669

8: 13,336 This is where I'm at and I am shamefully short of that word goal! I will remedy this tonight.

9: 15,003

10: 16,670

11: 18,337

12: 20,004

13: 21,671

14: 23,338

15: 25,005

16: 26,672

17: 28,339

18: 30,006

19: 31,673

20: 33,340

21: 35,007

22: 36,674

23: 38,341

24: 40,008

25: 41,675

26: 43,342

27: 45,009

28: 46,676

29: 48,343

30: 50,010

National Novel Writing Month inspirations: Nov. 7

I am really getting into "NaNoWriMo" so far and loving it! As of the end of the day yesterday I should be at the 10,000 word mark. I am a little short of that mark, but making huge strides to make up for lost time! I am at just over 7,000 words.

Here is a funny antic-dote for your enjoyment from my writing time yesterday:

I went to Starbucks to sit and write yesterday. I love the atmosphere of coffee shops, and they always seem to give me some great inspiration and writing enthusiasm that I don't get as much at home alone. I was there for almost 3 hours. So I was chugging along through some seriously good inspiration, writing some good dialogue, ignoring the people around me when I realized I was making facial expressions that my characters would make while saying the things I was writing! I'm sure my fellow patrons were highly entertained by my looks of confusion, excitement, discomfort and shock as I wrote some intense dialogue between two of my characters!

Am I the only person who visualizes what their characters would look like as they interact with each other or is this something most writers do? Sometimes I feel like a freak for the way I get into what I'm writing. My heart starts to race for them, my stomach drops, and my brain and fingers struggle to keep up with the rapid movement of the characters who come alive in my imagination.

I would love some input from anyone on something. There is a character that I am struggling to name and visualize. She is a harsh, abrupt girl, with a sharp, sarcastic tongue and little regard for the feelings of others. She is calloused and very rough around the edges. She will likely end up either ostracized from a group or she will come to her senses and change. I haven't decided her end yet. What does a girl like that look like to you, and what do you think her name should be? I have her noted as Caroline, but not planning on sticking with that name.

Progress

Here is an update about how I am doing so far with National Novel Writing Month.

I missed the 1st day, wrote like a mad woman the 2nd day, and haven't written since.

Story of my life...

But, the day I wrote like a mad woman was extremely productive. I am at just over 4,000 words!

Occasionally I will put bits and pieces up here, but probably not often. I am constantly editing in my head and that is not the point of writing a novel in a month. Writers are asked to just write and write and write and not look back. I am NOT good at that at all. If I were to put much of my work here I would be constantly be reading and rereading it and editing and obsessing and driving myself crazy over every little thing. I have a problem. Is there an Anonymous group for constant editors and critics of one's own work? I need a 12 step program here people!

So I can use all the encouragement and coffee that I can get to make it through this month of writing like crazy. I do my best writing in one of 2 places. Sitting in a semi-busy coffee shop with headphones in and moody music playing in my ears where I can watch people interact but not be expected to participate, or in my bedroom, some British movie playing in the background. And there has to be coffee. My mind likes to get sluggish and drowsy when I sit down to write, but coffee cures any of that in a jiffy!

Day 1&2 because I am constantly playing catch up

I started this journey to write a novel in a month. Yesterday was day 1. I was excited because Thursdays are usually one of my least busy days. Little did I know life had a different plan for me. I knew I was meeting with someone at 4 and figured it should only last about an hour or 2. A last minute phone call changed that 4 o'clock meeting to a 7 o'clock ministry event and possibly dinner after. The meeting is for a college ministry that I am getting involved in. I soon realized that I am not in college anymore and I am feeling a bit old! But as it turns out it was great! I met lots of people and am even more excited about this opportunity than I was before.

So because of that I got absolutely no writing done yesterday. The 1,667 daily word challenge has now become a 3,334 challenge for day 2. Lucky for me I will have the house to myself tonight! I plan on running an errand or 2 after work, getting take out and having date night with my laptop and Downton Abbey. Some people listen to music while they write, I listen to late 19th and early 20th century British dramas. To each his own I guess!

I wanted to create a short map of where my story starts and where I hope to have it end, with a few ups and downs along the way. As I have learned through my past writing experience, my characters tend to come alive in my mind somewhere along the way and they rarely follow my script! They prefer to laugh at my plans and promptly make their own way through the story, often ending up at a completely different spot than I intended for them.

I quite prefer my characters to play by their own rules. The stories that I come up with are rarely genius by any means and often sound lame even to me. When the characters take control of their own fictitious lives I am released from the pressure of moving the story along. I can allow them to take credit for success or failure, and that is okay by me!